The Tangled Branch Discussion Forums

We zero in on the subject of the magic of summer.  Post here, fearless writers, poems that you have written touching on the themes –  summer love, summer enchantment, the supernatural, fairies, summer lust, and whatever may be imagined as some magic of summertime.

If the poems fit the themes, it doesn’t matter if you have written them some time ago or you write them as you type your post.  Original work only, and pertaining to the theme – those are the only damn rules!!  Sound like summer?  Yes! – No other rules!!

We don't get Summers here,
high latitudes play havoc.

The Gulf Stream teases tepid promises.
But we shiver, and talk about the weather,
and pray that Trump fracks 
and opens wide the coal fields.

Carbon us please
carbon the fuck out of our planet.

This year it was hot,
relatively speaking
and for the first time 
Irish freckles joined up, even
redheads got a tan.

What a summer for the AC to quit,
time and dime stretched to wire,
so it's sit and marinate in the dutch oven
of my Ford, in rush-home traffic. Such
thoughts, windows open, tangled hair,
gritted teeth-- ashamed of the rickrack
of rust around wheel-wells, dings
on the left front quarter panel
where I swiped Aunt Jane's Saab last year,
the wet dishelved sweat of this driver.
I almost pull into the local auto dealer
each day as I pass, face a cherry tomato.

marinate in the dutch oven
of my Ford                            }
. . . .                                   }  
. . . face a cherry tomato    }

     The Spirit

My earth friends numerously tell me
to heal myself through bare skin 
contact with mother Gaia.                
It is early September. 

I think of the groundlings at the Globe.
Drunken, debauching assemblages 
for the presentations of Shakespeare. 

Now summer concerts from Central Park 
flicker unwatched in the front room.  
Simon sings to Garfunkel - we never parted.

Outside on those August nights behind 
a car on a farm site, feverish fumbling 
with the buttons which by morning 
reassembled, hopelessly mis-aligned, 
grinning, blinking: skin, skin, Gaia.




 

I'm really feeling the heat Sharon & Tracy
Nice poeming guys.

For a Moment 

We could be bugs
in a bug universe
in the rolling folds 
of August, a flurry, 
snippets lingering 
between grasses 
as the sun hangs 
another goodby
in the evening sky.


 

Local Poets

On muggy summer evenings
me ‘n Sweet Cheeks take the truck
out back to the railroad tracks – 
if I get the speed just right 
we both talk in iambic pentameter-
don’t make it poetry, don’t make it good poetry
And don’t help us get off any faster
when need be comes.


 

I search for the girls of summer
their waning moon hangs high,
their voices rustle in dark maple leaves
arching over the sidewalk.
The August evening warms
their laughter, blends with music
from the county fair.
I know their footsteps on this quiet avenue;
I can hear their tears falling,
calling up the hurt of a late night wait.

I search for the girls of summer;
perhaps I will find them at midnight
at the end of my walk
when I go inside and sharpen every pencil
from the cup on my desk.